The present invention relates to carts and, more particularly, to grocery-store shopping carts.
Since fairly early in the twentieth century, grocery shopping has predominantly been carried out by shoppers pushing grocery-store shopping carts up and down the aisles of ordinary food stores or supermarkets.
Shoppers make selections at various places along aisle after aisle of shelves, glass-doored freezer units, open-topped or upright coolers, produce racks and the like, all laden with many food items from which to choose. Shoppers select food items, whether displayed at room temperature, cooled or frozen, and place them in their carts, often during extended shopping periods, and then wheel them to check-out counters for ultimate bagging and removal from the store for transport, usually via automobile, to the shoppers"" destinations.
Such grocery-store shopping carts each typically have a large open-top container in which to store a large quantity of diverse food items, usually in jumbled fashion, with no particular organization whatsoever as to type of item or even as to appropriate storage temperature. Such open-top container typically has a substantially planar base bounded by front and rear endwalls and two sidewalls all terminating in a quadrilateral top edge which defines a plane. The planar base and the walls in most cases are formed of a lattice-work of thin metal rods or bars, giving the container a general openness.
The front endwall of the typical grocery-store shopping cart is often tilted forward (in a bottom-to-top direction); that is, the front endwall is at an acute angle with the plane formed by the quadrilateral top edge of the container. Likewise, in some cases the container sidewalls of the grocery-store shopping cart are also tilted slightly outwardly (in a bottom-to-top direction) so that they are wider apart at the top of the container than at the bottom. Either or both of these features help make the open top wider than the base, thereby allowing storage of larger collections of groceries than would otherwise be the case.
Because of the large size of the cart and the large number of such carts which must be stored at the grocery store or supermarket when not in use, such carts typically are built to be horizontally nestable with one another. This is typically accomplished by having the rear endwall of the container of each cart hinged (at the top of the rear endwall) so that it can swing upwardly to receive the front end of the container of an identical cart. The sidewalls of each container are tapered slightly toward one another (in a rear-to-front direction) such that the front of the container of one cart can readily be received into the rear of the container of another cart. When this occurs upon nesting, the rear endwall of one cart engages and slides along the quadrilateral top edge of the container walls of another cart.
Cooled and/or frozen foods all jumbled together with room-temperature foods, packaged or otherwise, and even perhaps with some hot prepared foods will not be maintained at their desirable or appropriate storage temperatures, particularly during extended grocery shopping. As can readily be seen, this can be problematic, because maintaining acceptable storage temperatures is important for reasons related to health and/or food-storage longevity. While foods typically may not spoil immediately, of course, even temporary storage at temperatures which are too high will tend to shorten the time before eventually spoilage, even if stored at home at appropriate cool or cold temperatures. Maintaining freshness of food is of great importance.
Using typical grocery-store shopping carts of the prior art can tend to cause food spoilage problems not only because of improper storage during shopping, but can tend to increase the likelihood of such problems in other ways. More specifically, such shopping carts of the prior art, with their jumbled presentation of cool, frozen and room-temperature foods at the check-out counter, can tend to discourage conscious efforts by check-out personnel to at least group cool-temperature foods together upon bagging for the purpose of enhancing their protection during the trip home.
Sub-containers used within the main containers of shopping carts can interfere too much with storage in the space which is outside the sub-container but within the main container. The use of sub-containers also can tend to interfere too much with a grocer""s established patterns for providing carts for shoppers. For example, without appropriate configuring, there could be excessive interference with nesting of grocery-store shopping carts and cleaning shopping-cart equipment from time to time as needed could become too problematic.
From a grocer""s perspective, shopping-cart improvements of a type which could increase the duration of a shopper""s total shopping time, such as would tend to occur with apparent protection for the condition of cool and frozen foods, would be desirablexe2x80x94as allowing greater time for influencing positive purchasing decisions by shoppers.
While certain improvements have been made in grocery-store shopping carts, there has remained a need for improved grocery-store shopping carts which accommodate the need of shoppers for temporary storage of varying groceries under diverse conditions and the needs of the grocer for easy storage and maintenance.
It is a primary object of this invention to provide an improved grocery-store shopping cart overcoming problems and shortcomings of the prior art, including those mentioned above.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved grocery-store shopping cart which facilitates the thermal protection of cool and frozen foods.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved grocery-store shopping cart which minimizes the likelihood of food spoilage because of insufficient thermal protection of cold and frozen foods.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved grocery-store shopping cart which facilitates temporary storage of diverse groceries under different conditions.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved grocery-store shopping cart which can be used easily by shoppers and grocers and serves to extend the usable life foods after they have been transported to a shopper""s refrigerator.
Still another object of this invention is to provide an improved grocery-store shopping cart which facilitates segregated temporary thermal protection of cold foods during shopping.
Yet another object is to provide a grocery-store shopping cart which has improved capability for carrying diverse groceries under varying conditions and is also readily and conveniently stored by grocers between uses by shoppers.
Another object is to provide a grocery-store shopping cart with diverse-thermal-condition food storage which can be readily cleaned and maintained from time to time by grocers.
Still another object of the invention is to provide an improved grocery-store shopping cart which can tend to increase the duration of a shoppers"" presence at the grocery store or supermarket.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improved grocery-store shopping cart which increases the likelihood of proper thermal packaging of groceries upon check-out.
These and other objects of the invention will be apparent from the following descriptions and from the drawings.
The grocery-store shopping cart of this invention overcomes the problems and shortcomings noted above and achieves the objects of this invention. The inventive shopping cart is an improvement in the type of grocery-store shopping cart which has a main container with a substantially planar base bounded by front and rear endwalls and two sidewalls all terminating in a quadrilateral top edge which defines a plane.
The improved shopping cart has an insulated inner container which is within the main container and detachably secured to the main container, and which is positioned substantially entirely below the plane and adjacent to only one endwall of the main container to leave substantial remaining storage volume in the main container but outside the inner container. This invention facilitates diverse-condition cartage of groceries for the user, and facilitates the provision of such shopping-cart advantages for grocers.
In certain highly preferred embodiments, the inner container of the shopping cart has a hinged cover. Preferably, the inner container has a top which is substantially flush with the plane formed by the top edge of the main-container walls, and such top is preferably a hinged cover.
In certain highly preferred embodiments, one of the main-container endwalls is at an acute angle to the plane and the inner container has (a) one inner-container wall substantially parallel to and against such one main-container endwall and (b) a top at an acute angle to such one inner-container wall and substantially parallel to the plane.
In the most highly preferred embodiments of this type, the main-container front endwall is at an acute angle to the plane formed by the top edge of the main-container walls, and the inner container has (a) an inner-container front wall substantially parallel to and against the main-container front endwall and (b) a top at an acute angle to the inner-container front wall and substantially parallel to the plane.
The inner container preferably has, or also has, a pair of spaced inner-container sidewalls each substantially parallel to and against one of the main-container sidewalls. In certain highly preferred embodiments of this invention, the inner container has a lower wall with a bottom against the main-container base, and the inner-container top is flush or substantially flush with the plane.
Certain additional features of highly preferred embodiments of this invention are further helpful in making the diverse-thermal-condition cartage advantage of this invention readily and conveniently usable by grocersxe2x80x94in fact, usable with minimal changes in their shopping-cart storage and maintenance routines. In particular, typical cart nesting may be facilitated by certain features and cleaning and maintenance are facilitated by other features.
More specifically, the main-container rear endwall is hinged, as is typical, in order to swing upwardly and rest on the top edge of a second similar shopping cart when the carts are horizontally nested, and the inner container is recessed below the plane in order to avoid any interference during such nesting. Also, the inner-container lower wall preferably has an opening therethrough which is closed by a removable stopper, thereby to facilitate washing from time to time as may be needed. Washing can be carried out easily, whether by hosing the inner containers in place, or by removing them, hosing them, and then reattaching them in their main containers.
The size of the smaller insulated inner container relative to the main container can vary significantly. An appropriate choice depends on what the typical volume of refrigerated groceries purchased might be to the typical volume of non-refrigerated groceries purchasedxe2x80x94by the typical shopper.